Monday, March 24, 2008

We've got a female driver who started working about a year ago. She's from Eastern Europe and speaks only a little English. She was very shy when she started -- a real nice lady. I helped train her because our official trainer is from the same country she is from -- Serbia -- and because they were talking Serbian all the time, the new driver wasn't learning much English. Anyway, she went from a nice lady to a worthless b**** in no time.

Example: We had a four-cab call for a large party at a nice hotel. She was the last of four, and I was penultimate. She arrived last, drove in front of the three other cabs, took the first people to walk out of the hotel, and sped away. She ignored our complaints on the radio.

She also calls on the radio that she's entering the zone about a mile before she actually is. Also, she calls clear several blocks before she arrives at her destination. The other trick she pulls is to call 10-21 (going home for the day), then drive around with her radio on and steal flags, off duty.

We complain about her on the radio, at each instance, but nothing gets done. Several other drivers nominated me to speak with the cab company owner in person because I have a good rapport with him. I'm going to explain the situation. If he won't change the woman's behavior, then the drivers will make her quit by stealing every ride she gets. I'll have a face-to-face confrontation with her before it comes to making her quit, though. Every Eastern European we get has to go through the same process (same for Middle Eastern drivers). They start out thinking they can do whatever they want, and they need to be shown that that's not acceptable.